Oh! Well now it makes sense! Thank you.
My mom used that phrase (without the word “screaming”) too. She was never in the military, though. I always assumed it was one of those popular expressions in her generation–like “straighten up and fly right,” an admonition I heard CONSTANTLY from adults when I was growing up in the 1960s, but haven’t encountered in conversations for at least thirty years.
Something my dad said once always stuck in my head, and I always assumed he made it up on the fly. Now, reading some of your parents’ sayings, I’m not so sure.
Once I was trying to fold blankets, and my dad was displeased about how badly I was doing it. He said “You fold blankets like an old man going to church.”
Another thing he used to say that I thought he made up was “You weren’t holding your mouth right.” This was said when you were trying some game of skill and missed the target. Then I heard the good ol’ boys in the movie Easy Rider say the same thing and I knew he had learned it down south, where he was born.
My mother always said it as “A turd of hurtles.”
My step-father, whenever I expressed dislike for some food or another, would always say “Throw him a goddamn fish!” If I forgot to zip my pants up, he’d say “A seagull is gonna getcha!” And whenever my mother would venture an opinion he didn’t like, he’d say “Tend to your knittin’”!" That one always puzzled me; I assume he got it from his own father.
Missed the edit window…I’m aware that “straighten up and fly right” is from a Nat King Cole song. I didn’t know that until I saw the movie The Right Stuff, which featured the song in a scene. Before that, it was just this weird phrase that various authority figures in my life would use when telling me to stop fucking around and apply myself.
My parents are linguistically uncreative. In fifteen years my daughter will be in here talking about her parents, though:
that burns my biscuits
he’s just a fart in a jar
we have dined sumptuously
tender as a mother’s love
And, a phrase which seems ordinary right now but always confuses her,
I’m not saying, I’m just saying.
I’ve used the “Holding my mouth right” phrase myself, when using a finicky piece of electronics. You know, something that should work right off, but takes a couple of tries for no obvious reason. It may as well be the way I was holding my mouth.
Some wisdom from my dad…
“Don’t sit on cold concrete, you will get hemroids”.
I was seven years old and thought, what is a hemroid?
Don’t recall the exact words after 30 years but here’s the gist. Dad always called home before leaving work and I had the line tied up one afternoon. Dad not being able to get through that day made Mom very concerned and a bit scared.
I guess there was a big fight early in the marriage when Dad come home mad about not being able to get the call through and Mom still remembered all those years later.
My MIL always said to me when I got smart with her, “I 've forgotten more than you will ever know”. She was a hard woman to love, but I did. I think i loved her more than her own daughter.
My Daddys Japanese curse words are not something I remember. I will ask my kids if they remember any and let you know Roderick. It has been a few years.
My mom always called Burger King by the name Burger Chef instead. Had no idea why, apparently Burger Chef was a major burger retailer that pretty much disappeared by the time I was a kid.
From dad:
You don’t have a Chinaman’s chance.
That would gag a maggot on a gut truck.
(when someone stumbles) Smooth move, Ex-lax.
You can wipe your ass with that (item you just purchased).
mmm
I remember Burger Chef. (And Jeff).
My mother used to call us ragamuffins and tatterdemalions, which I assumed were common words everyone used until I used them around someone else.
Other family expressions:
“A man’s coming.” (My grandmother would say this after someone dropped a knife).
“You drive like Barney Olfield.”
“I don’t wanna hear that Banned-in-Boston.”
“You give a woodpecker a headache.”
“He’s out in the rain like Thompson’s colt”
Jiminy crickets, my gramma always said I wasn’t holding my mouth right! I say it to my grandkids. It’s true, you know…gotta stick my tongue out the corner of my mouth when I concentrate or things go wrong.
My dad regarding a woman with lipstick that was too brightly red or just overly made up - Looks like the north end of a south-bound baboon.
My mom, when someone is not hurrying fast enough to suit her: “C’mon, you move like dead flies are falling off you!”
I’m not sure if faster-moving individuals have live flies falling off them instead, or if being slow causes flies to die on one’s presence, or what, exactly.
I think “The hair on his ass got to his head” refers to a bad hairstyle, but still not sure if I heard that correctly.
Similarly, “that would knock a buzzard off a gut-wagon.”
My mother-in-law has a few oddball phrases she still uses. “Enough to feed Cox’s army” is one. I think she’s just messing up the “Coxey’s army” phrase someone posted earlier.
Also, apparently as an expression of amazement, “shit fire and green weenies”. I can find a reference to “shit fire and save matches”, but the “green weenies” part is a head-scratcher.
When my mom and somebody else would pass on either side of a lamppost or other vertical divider, she’d always say “bread and butter.”
The last words of Trudy Monk on “Monk” were “Bread and Butter” Trudy Monk | Monk Wiki | Fandom - it’s an old superstition Bread and butter (superstition) - Wikipedia